Justin's work reviews formal structures of image-making after a history of documentary realism in South Africa. His Cape Town based project, It Must Be Built From Ashes, challenges the mainstream media portrayal of Mitchells Plain and the Cape Flats, creating an intimate social dialogue with communities and their youth. Mitchells Plain, on the outskirts of Cape Town, is a purpose-built relocation area that developed following forced removals from Cape Town’s inner-city during the country’s apartheid regime. The project evaluates the notion of citizenship and place-related identity in breaking down historical constructs — creating a renewed visual economy for the area and its people. Justin captures the diversity of Mitchells Plain through nurturing relationships that explore interpretations of home and our sense of belonging — depicting children and young adults as they search for meaning in this world. Justin's work confronts the ethics of viewership in South Africa, questioning our global presence in the production of the postcolony and interpreting a sense of self in modern-day South Africa.

Being for the Other centres on an unarmed, all-women anti-poaching unit combatting illegal wildlife trafficking in South Africa's Kruger area. The unit was initiated as an educational response to discourage young people in local communities from entering the dangerous poaching industry, and as a way of mobilising alternative forms of employment. Justin’s work looks at the socially-embedded aspects contributing to the perpetuation of poaching in South Africa, shining a light on an alternative approach that focuses on widespread community impact through the individual. Justin’s work gives a voice to the people affected by poaching, forming relationships and exploring communities’ history with land entitlement at a time when politicised claims and repatriation in a post-colonial context are commonplace in South Africa.